Written by James “Torok” Thomsen
“Team Singularity will return stronger for 2021, and like a phoenix rising from the ashes, re-establish ourselves as a major player within the NLC.”
The promise made last December in regards to our League of Legends division has been kept and I am proud of the growth we have made following the Winter off-season. Finishing 3rd in our NLC Spring group and upsetting Tricked Esport to claim 4th place in the Spring Playoffs is a great achievement for our new roster, and staff team.
After a long and hard-fought off-season transfer window, pre-season began in early January for our first game versus Riddle Esports. Seeded as 6th by the collective NLC ecosystem, we entered the league as playoffs contender, but far from favorites. However, following back-to-back victories against Riddle and Barrage in the early weeks of the competition, we demonstrated we were not just in the League to play spoiler. With Barrage being a heavily tipped squad to challenge for an EU Masters spot and having already beaten Fnatic Rising in Week 1, our decisive victory came as a surprise to many in the NLC. Quickly, we began to earn a reputation as a calculated and methodical team within the League, who’d commonly set the pace of the game.
That being said, it was Fnatic Rising who set the pace against us in both Week 3 and the rematch, wherein Febiven and Co showed just how strong they could be.
Despite our losses against Fnatic, we continued to show up strong against the weaker teams in our group, cruising to 2-0 head to heads against Riddle, Kova and MnM.
Crucially, Barrage retained their own win streak, and in a 40-minute clanger, we, unfortunately, lost to leave our record against them at 1-1. This would have left us out of top 2 contention, (due to their earlier victory over Fnatic Rising), however, a surprise loss to another playoff side KOVA set us up for a tiebreaker going into week 6.
Moving to a strong early lead via WeiZoR’s Quinn, we appeared poised to take the tiebreaker and top 2 in the group, however, a few failed skirmishes and a disaster at Baron led to Barrage gaining both Baron Buff and the mountain soul. The swing in gold, stats and momentum was too much to overcome and lead to us playing in the lower bracket of the NLC playoffs.
Our first opponent, Granit Gaming, were the golden boys of Group A. With a fully rookie roster and in their inaugural season, the squad had made it to the NLC playoffs. Lead by their talented mid Sahira and with the addition of Saju as their new jungler for playoffs, Granit could have been ready to make an upset. However, Sahira was largely contained with his Viktor and Ryze being removed for the entire series – and two huge teamfights in games 1 and 2 moved us on in the playoffs to face the loser from the upper bracket game between Fnatic Rising and Tricked.
Tricked Esport had an interesting season, starting strong in Group A and sprinting to a 5-1 start. However, as the season progressed, they only held onto their top 2 spot from Nordavind via a final week tiebreaker and looked shaky going into the upper bracket. A swift 2-0 from Fnatic confirmed their fate and they fell down to face us for a place in the lower bracket final.
As our Danish rivals, Tricked were a team we understood how to beat. Flipper and Baloo would consistently pull the trigger as a duo, but often ahead of their team. Despite this, game 1 was a game of inches between both sides, Baloo’s Rell showing just how potent the champion could be and thankfully, we took the win. Following a shift in priorities and a fantastic teamfight in Game 2 Tricked levelled the series to 1-1.
Game 3 was beautiful for many reasons, but most impressive was WeiZoR’s crushing of Nille as Volibear despite being diagnosed with Covid-19 days before playing our playoffs game. WeiZoR and Noltey truly came together to demolish the topside of the map, take the reins and never let go until the end of a great series.
Nordavind however, were a different beast. As the only non-academy side to share a gaming house, Nordavind had made a semi-miraculous recovery from their early form in Group A to look like one of the strongest teams in the competition. Taking an early lead in the series, Nordavind looked crushing with Sharp and Erixen’s mid 2v2 taking over the game. Despite a strong comeback in game 2 to level the series via our own Tristana/Lillia combo – Sharp’s pocketpick Karthus proved too much to overcome in game 3, and brought our season to an end.
Proving expectations wrong is always a great feeling, however, reflecting on our season we know we can go one better in summer. With more time to practice and develop our style, we’re ready to better our Spring finish and launch an all-out war with Nordavind, Excel and Fnatic for the title.
#SNGARMY
About Team Singularity:
Team Singularity, recently acquired by Rightbridge Ventures, launched in 2016 as a grassroots operation and has grown into a premier esports organization with professional teams competing in Fortnite, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rocket League, League of Legends, FIFA22, Apex Legends and more.
The company is focused on talent development and is the leading player talent incubator in esports. Team Singularity has the largest path2pro esports academy in the world with over 10,000 active amateur players making their way to become the next pro player in esports.
Team Singularity is home to more than 100 players and staff members from more than 30 different countries.
About GamerTech™:
GamerTech (GT) brings disruptive products, technology-based gamer wearables, and advanced apparel solutions to market, focused explicitly on gamers and esports athletes to boost performance, amplify experience, and enhance their overall wellness. GT is a startup within MAS Innovation, a subsidiary of MAS Holdings - the most prominent apparel tech manufacturer in South Asia, with over 118,000 employees across 17 countries and a turnover of USD 2 billion, strongly focusing on apparel-based innovations. MAS Innovation ranked 18th among the world's best workplaces for innovators, conducted by Fast Company in 2022, and placed in Clarivate's highly prestigious Asian innovators list in 2021 and 2022.
